Hamburg, Germany

Well, we've said goodbye to the horses and hosts of Meldgaarde Heste, and are currently doing a bit of exploring through Germany. After about two weeks on the horse farm, it was somewhat of a sensation overload arriving in Hamburg central station - it's huge, with about a trillion people wandering around, lots of bright lights and shiny things and just about everything you would expect from a city hub.

With only two nights here, we didn't try to do too much. Checked out the art gallery, which included possibly the biggest free-standing painting in the entire world - it must have been at least 10m by 20m!! We also climbed the St Michaelis church and got a great view over the city. Here we climbed 451 steps each way, up and down, because somebody thought it would be a good idea to skip the lift!!
Also spent some time wandering the main shopping district, which supposedly has the biggest shoe stores in Europe (or the world?) I'm not sure if we actually went in it, but we did find a store that had at least two huge levels, mainly with shoes for women of course. During this time Lecky sat outside the store and wondered why he wasn't drunk yet. Another major tourist drawcard in Hamburg is the Reeperbahn area - they call it the 'mile of sin', and it's basically a red light district with a lot of normal bars and clubs thrown in for good measure. The area is pretty much left alone by the police, which means at night it turns into an underage clubbing zone in the streets - you can drink alcohol anywhere you want here anyway.

We're just about to head off south to Hanover, and then probably the small town of Goslar at the base of the Harz mountains.

PS. Happy birthday to Lecky for Sunday! He will officially be considered a 'senior' in many European hostels - the cutoff is under 27 for 'juniors'.